I'm Too Busy

For the three people who stumble across this blog, I'm too busy to keep it up.  I'm restricting myself to The Wild Land of Lincoln and I'm going to let this one hibernate, for now.

Ordering Plants From Hippies (Or Hipsters) and Decisions

I am at present planning to order plants for this spring.  Most of the companies I plan to order from are on the West Coast.  The reason for that is the fact that we Midwesterners tend not to experiment with different plants as often as people on the West Coast, because we're boring people who live in a giant cornfield.  A second, more logical reason is the rainfall on the West Coast, as well as the longer growing season, makes it easier to grow plants there.  Of course, the ex-hippies are common in this area, as are hipsters.  I do not know which ideology wrote this sentence as a plant description on Far Reaches Farm:    (Plant in question is pictured below, in a picture taken from Far Reaches Farm)

"Yet another example of our compulsive need to acquire and assimilate broad representations of obscure genera that we find fascinating yet carry little or no hope of broad-based market appeal while fostering an ongoing pathology of justification endowing our long-term approach of Reineckea espousal which favors attraction rather than promotion in expectation that surely this will be the year that the noble gardening populace will have achieved the fourth stage of enlightenment and can embrace a neglected genus with complete intention, grace and humility."  

  I'm from Illinois.  Could I have that in English, you New Age nurserymen?  (Sorry, nurserypeople.  I have to be politically correct).   In English:

Yet another example of the strange plants we find interesting, but which do not sell well to the general public.  We try to justify this by hoping that this will be the year that Reineckea plants suddenly become popular with the public.

So these are the sort of  inflated descriptions inflicted on me as I browse the web, looking for plants no one's ever heard of to buy and show off to people who generally don't care.  

Here are some of the choices:

Corydalis elata - This belongs to one of my favorite plants genera, Corydalis.  Corys are small, often bulbous plants with flowers that are really like the spur of  an Aquilegia (columbine) crossed with a Penstemon (beardtongue).  This is a blue Corydalis from China.   (Image of Corydalis elata borrowed from plantsforshade.co.uk)

 The very first blue Corydalis species from China, Corydalis flexuosa, has one of my favorite backstories.  It is a similar, but more delicate species, which prefers cooler summers than Corydalis elata.  The first nurseryman to discover C. flexuosa in the 1980s, the legend goes, was being escorted by members of the Chinese government and was not allowed to touch any plants.  He excused himself to go to the bathroom behind a tree, and dug up the tubers of three dissimilar C. flexuosa.  He stuffed these in his underwear and smuggled them out of the woods thusly.  Eventually the nurseryman and the three tubers made their way to England, and he introduced them as three varieties: "Blue Panda",  "China Blue", and "Purple Leaf".  While it is a good story, I cannot say if it is true.    C. elata, a more recent introduction, is considerably more heat-tolerant than C. flexuosa, thus making it better for my Midwestern garden.  I once had the opportunity to buy Corydalis flexuosa in a local nursery when I was younger, and I chose not to do so because it was about twenty dollars and at the time I didn't have a job.  Considering that is the biggest botanical regret I have ever had, I've led a pretty happy life!

Impatiens omeiana (photo credit desirableplants.com) -  Impatiens is a curious genus.  The one plant in the genus with flat, as opposed to tubular, flowers  (Impatiens walleriana) is the most popular species, while almost all of the hundreds of other species have tubular flowers in all sorts of colors.  Two species, annuals of wet, shady spots, are native to Illinois.  Several more species grow throughout the U.S.  However, it is in the tropics of the Old World that Impatiens reaches its zenith, especially India.  Many more cold-tolerant species grow in China, including this species, which shares its territory with Corydalis elata.   While it has great flowers, the foliage is perhaps the main attraction of Impatiens omeiana, with the red veins and stems contrasting with the dark green of the leaves.   This plant also is a shade plant that blooms in September, a time when few other plants are blooming in the shade garden.

I know that  I want these two species.  After this, however, here are two contenders for third place.  I only have the funds for three plants, so I am only going to buy three plants. 

Bletilla striata (Chinese Ground Orchid)  (Photo credit Sten Porse on Wikimedia) -  It's an orchid.  Enough said. Okay, maybe that's not true.  It's a hardy terrestrial orchid tolerant of inexperienced gardeners.  Native to Japan (not China), this orchid has been grown in gardens for hundreds of years. It is one I've had my eyes on for a long time, and is a plant that I will definitely grow at some point.  Bletilla striata grows well in St. Louis, Missouri, and I suspect it will do fine here.  It truly looks like an orchid as well, and that appeals to me strongly.  However, it's actually kind of common compared to the other choice:

Polygonatum kingianum (Royal Solomon's Seal)   (Both pictures Far Reaches Farm)- This Chinse species of Solomon's Seal has no common name of its own, but with the last name of kingianum Royal Solomon's Seal sounds good to me.  It also grows twelve feet tall.  I just want it because it can do that.  Of course, it also ends up covered in hundreds of flowers come May.  These flowers resemble Dichelostemma ida-maia (Firecracker Flower), and I am certain everyone who reads this blog has little idea what that is.  I'll just give you a picture of Royal Solomon's Seal flowers and let you google Dichelostemma.  Based on the growing conditions, I should be able to grow it, and it would be awesome to have this giant flowering bamboo-like plant in the back of my garden...While I like this plant for its rarity, that also means I don't know how it will do in this area.  Both plants suffer from that problem, however, and the only way to find out is to quote Shia Labeouf and "Just Do It!"

Leave a comment below rooting for which plant you think should be #3.  First comment decides which one I get.  If there are no comments, I will... make an independent decision  ( The horror! The horror!)

Plant Species of My Personal Garden

I am a botanist in training, so I have an ornamental garden.  This is not an ordinary garden, however, for  I have a garden that has a plant species native to every continent in the world.  (Shameless self-promotion)

I do like native plants, but I also enjoy finding rare gems from other countries (eg.  Saruma henryi)  that grow perfectly well in a Midwestern garden.  The amount of variability in the weather, of course, determines what will grow.  Illinois has a sort of climatic schizophrenia that we call weather, which helps to rule out a great number of plants.   But, there are still many left.

The full list, unsorted, lies below.  The names in bold are native plants.

Plants I Grow Currently, as of January, 2016
Corydalis “Canary Feathers”
Cyclamen hederifolium
Arum italicum- Italian Arum
Asplenium trichomanes- Maidenhair Spleenwort
Thelypteris decursive-pinnata- Japanese Beech Fern
Polystichum acrostichoides - Christmas Fern
Athyrium felix-feminia “Cristata” - Crested Lady Fern
Matteuccia struthiopteris- Ostrich Fern
Asarum europaeum-  European Wild Ginger
Asarum canadense- Wild Ginger
Erythronium albicans- White Dogtooth Violet
Polemonium reptans- Jacob's Ladder
Pieris japonica
Oxalis spp..
Aquilegia hybrids, especially with Aquilegia canadiensis- Columbine
Osmundastrum cinnamomeum- Cinnamon Fern
Galium oderatum- Sweet Woodruff
Cimicifuga racemosa/Actaea racemosa- Bugbane
Cymbalaria muralis- Kenilworth Ivy
Aster divarica- White Wood Aster
Ligularia “Bottle Rocket”
Helleborus hybrid- Lenten Rose
Ipheion unifolium- Spring Star Flower
Muscari spp.- Grape Hyacinth
Anemone blanda, various
Narcissus hybrids- Daffodils
Maianthemum canadense?- False Lily of the Valley
Viola riviniana- Labrador Violet
Polygonatum oderatum “Varigatum”- Solomon's Seal
Pulmonaria spp.- Lungwort
Carex spp.- Sedge
Dicentra hybrid- Fernleaf Bleeding Heart
Lamprocapnos spectabilis- Bleeding Heart
Ornithogalum nutans
Viola sororia- Common Blue Violet
Tricyrtis hirta- Toad Lily
Kniphofia spp.- Red Hot Poker
Trillium luteum
Claytonia virginica- Spring Beauty
Myosotis verna- Forget-me-not
Viola spp. -Yellow Violet
Itea virginica “Little Henry”- Little Henry Sweetspire
Trillium recurvatum
Trillium sessile?
Iris germania spp. - Yellow Bearded Iris
Iris germania spp. #2- White Bearded Iris
Silene regia- Royal Catchfly
Chrysanthemum hybrids
Belamcanda chinensis “Mellow Yellow”- Yellow Blackberry Lily
Dodecatheon meadia “Alba”- White Shooting Star
Epimedium spp. -Barrenwort
Hosta hybrid
Hosta plantaginea
Disporum cantoniese “Moonlight”?- Chinese Fairy Bells
Hypericum spp.- St. John's Wort
Oenothera fruticosa- Sundrops
Isotoma fluvatilis- Blue Star Creeper
Campulana poscharskyana- Serbian Bellflower
Bellium miniatum?- Miniature Daisy
Clematis hybrid
Saruma henryi?- Chinese Yellow Ginger
Spigelia marilandica?- Indian Pink
Corydalis buschii?
Leucanthemum hybrid- Shasta Daisy
Lilum hybrid- Asian Lily
Lilum hybrid - Different Asian Lily
Lycoris squamigera- Suprise Lily
Crocus X verna- mixed
Crocus spp.
Allium caeruleum- Blue Onion
Tulipa hybrids- Tulips
Sedum spp? -Wild Stonecrop
Iris verna- Dutch Iris
Allium schoenoprasum- Chives
Scutellaria incana- Skullcap
Monarda spp.- Bee Balm
Allium cernuum- Nodding Onion
Semiaquilegia spp
Platycodon grandiflora “Astra Pink”- Pink Balloon Flower
Tiarella spp.- Foamflower
Ruellia humilis- Wild Petunia

Geranium xcambrigense

New Year, New Blog

I have started a new blog!  This is my gardening blog.  I have a nature in general blog over at The Wild Land Of Lincoln, but I enjoy gardening and discussing plants that few people have ever heard of.  I also do not necessarily want to limit myself to plants native to the American continent.  After all, where else am I going to talk about Saruma henryi?    If you know what that is, you have my congratulations.  So, this blog is here.  I hope you all enjoy.

One half of my garden in late spring last year: